


Stakeout (or Hello Pandora)

by ArmageddonGeneration



Series: Jon and Damian, Sitting in a Tree [1]
Category: Super Sons (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics)
Genre: And doesn't know how to deal with it, But Jon is taking none of his shit, Damian is worried, Damijon - Freeform, Gen, Low key stalking, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Super Sons - Freeform, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-12 07:25:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10485453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArmageddonGeneration/pseuds/ArmageddonGeneration
Summary: Gar has been waiting out in the cold for 5 hours. His tail is frozen, Damian is unusually demonic and Gar swears if the little devil doesn't explain why the team is here right now he's going to explode.Instead, Damian starts flirting with a random stranger.Thanks to NikeScaret for betaing this!





	

**Author's Note:**

> Damian is 13  
> Jon is 11

Bird's eyes are pretty amazing. As a sparrow, on a clear day Gar could see for a hundred miles in all directions. Except it's not a clear day. The sky is cold and grey iron, and all Gar has to look at is the squat, red brick prison (sorry, _high school_ ) they've been circling for the last _five hours._

The voice of the Great Tormentor sounds in his ear.

"Report in."

"Nothing yet, boss." Wally says.

Gar catches a bolt of red circling the block as he flutters to the next tree. Lucky bastard. At least he gets to move around, so warm he leaves a streak of melted ice and clear sidewalk in his wake.

Starfire's next, floating way up out of sight. Gar wonders if she's above the clouds, high enough to feel the sun.

"I have nothing to report, but I don't think Raven is feeling well."

"I'm fine." Raven snaps in her 'I'm totally not fine but I'm still obligated to be a hardass about it' voice.

"What's wrong with you?" Damian snaps back.

"Nothing. It's just the building." Rae exhales, and Gar imagines her rubbing her left temple the way she does when she gets stressed. Small, concentric circles (not that he'd been paying attention or anything, oh no). "Embarrassment, anxiety and misery are coming off this place in waves."

"It must be some kind of demon." Star proclaims gravely.

"Nah, that's just high school." Wally says.

Star huffs.

"It cannot be that bad. On Tamarind, the initiation ceremony for warrior training involved defeating a Pilroc Beast bare-handed. They are hideous monsters, eighty feet long with five heads."

"On Earth, you get your head stuffed down a toilet."

Star goes very quiet.

"... I think I prefer the Pilroc."

"Stop clogging up the radio waves with this idle chatter!" Roars their fearless leader. "We need to be on alert! This mission is of the highest importance."

"And what are we meant to be doing exactly?" asks Wally.

"That depends on what Beast Boy has to report."

Gar dives behind a garden wall and slinks out a cat.

"Well, I've definitely got frostbite."

He can practically _feel_ Damian grinding his teeth through the comms.

"... Do you have anything _pertinent_ to report?"

"D'you think it hurts when they amputate a frostbitten tail?" Gar asks conversationally, "What bits do you think will be missing when I change back? A finger? A leg? I mean, it won't make much difference, the tissue will already be all dead and mushy and black, but -"

"Garfield, please, I just ate." Star interjects. Damian loses it. Again.

"Logan, if you can't keep yourself on task I swear I'll use your pelt for a rug, so help me..."

Gar examines his paw. There's an annoying speck of dirt wedged between two claws, and he tries to work it out with his tongue. Damian's screeching has hit its second wind.

"...insult to the title of superhero, you hormone-fueled party boy..."

Gar idly wonders what will be for dinner tonight. He doesn't think he can survive any more of Star's cooking; the last meal she'd served had achieved semi-sentience and tried to throttle him.

"... Get back to patrolling and stop wasting our time!"

"Whatever you say, boss-man." Gar pads around the corner, where Wally is propped up against another garden wall, staring at the school, rubbing his hands together so fast they blur. "This whole thing is a waste of our time." Gar complains, jumping onto the wall next to him. "And please don't do that near me, you're a walking fire hazard." he jerks back to avoid a fountain of sparks from Wally's hands.

"Hey man, I've got it under control now." Wally makes a face. "You're doing that thing again."

"What thing?"

"The grooming thing." Wally points accusingly as Gar's tongue works at his fur.

"I'm getting into character!" Gar protests indignantly.

"Right. Just so long as it _stays_ in character."

"Hey, if you don't like my method acting -"

"Method acting? You realize you're just a glorified furry, right?"

Gar's mouth drops open.

"How do you even know what - y'know what, never mind. You sound just like Damian."

Wally sighs and leans back.

"You shouldn't be so harsh on him, man. This one means a lot to him. He's been even crankier than usual lately."

"Yeah, it's like he's a completely different person." Gar grumbles, trying to get comfortable on a bed of ice and brick. "What I don't get is _why_. So a couple of kryptonite powered robots are on the run, we should be out there kicking their asses instead of freezing ours off!"

"The League have dibs on the bots."

"Then why are we even here? 'High value target' my ass, it's a school! The guy we're protecting is just a kid!"

"And what d'you think _we_ are?"

"Incredibly mature and wise beyond our years."

Wally sighs again. Gar calls this 'The Me Effect'

"Look, Robin says this kid's in danger and I trust him. He wouldn't be the first guy to get mixed up in something shady instead of going to classes."

Gar thinks back to the (surprisingly detailed) briefing pack Robin had given them, and the picture of the bespectacled kid with permanent bed hair and a permeant smile.

"Would it really be that big of a deal?"

"Yeah." Wally stares at him like he's stupid, and Gar's skin prickles. "Yeah, it really would be."

"Well I don't know." Gar huffs, "I've never set foot in one of those festering zit-factories."

"Right," Wally rolls his eyes, “you were too busy out there playing with the wild things."

"Yup! The jet setting life of international intrigue for _moi!_ What about you?"

Wally looks back at the school, like an old man trying to remember what it was like to be young.

"Oh, my education was high school without the musical." His foot taps an impatient drill beat on the pavement. "OK, I'm getting cold. Gonna do a few laps of the city."

"Dude, you can't just leave me here! Everything's frozen over, even my -"

"Bye!"

Wally is gone in a gust of warm air Gar kind of hates himself for trying to savor.

"Dammit." He squints up at the sky, as if expecting something interesting and action-packed to fall from above. A snowflake lands on his upturned nose.

He wonders what it would've been like to have a normal childhood, and not wake up in a new bed in a new country every other week. He casts another glance at the school, at the sleepy suburbia hemming it in. All he sees are walls and iron gates and white picket fences getting lost in the snow. He shivers. No. He doesn't like the idea of being caged. His parents - "Hey, Rae? How's it lookin' from up there?"

"Cold."

"Thanks, that makes me feel way better."

"I'm not your agony aunt, Garfield. You need to be patient."

"I don't do patient, I need to move." Gar says, stretching out.

"Then move your feet more and your mouth less!" Damian yells. Gar hisses and feels his fur stand on end.

"What is _up_ with him?"

"He's ..." Rae pauses, as if fishing for the right word, "Worried."

Gar almost falls off his wall.

"Worried? _Robin?_ "

"Try concerned." Raven offers.

Gar hits the sidewalk again, thinking he might be able to outpace the cold.

"This is the same guy who laughed when KF set himself on fire trying to vibrate through a wall?"

"I don't pretend to understand why. You guys don't even know that for yourselves, so how am I supposed to?" She sounds waspish and hungover, the way he does when he wakes up the morning after, and has to piece together the damage he's done in the night. "You people never give me time to think, you're never stop _feeling_ , you're so _loud_ -" Raven realizes she's been yelling. Gar hears her breathe. "Sorry. The angst is rubbing off on me. I'll need to shower when we get back."

"It's cool." Gar says ( _it's really not_ , protest his sensitive feline ears).

Raven starts probing.

"Gar, you're an emotional guy -"

"In a seductively wounded, incredibly manly way -" he interrupts hurriedly - she ignores him -

"How do you fit it all in one head?"

Gar suddenly remembers she's not human. (Big duh, he knows, but sometimes he can't help it slapping him in the face).

"Well," he muses, "Damian's head is pretty huge."

"Damian has the opposite problem. If he let himself, he'd feel too much, so he locks it all away in a tiny box. I can never open it, but now -"

"Now Pandora's come calling, and he's worried. Which means we should probably all be worried too."

Raven falls silent, and Gar has time to think. Someone who has the power to open up the most rigidly self-controlled tight-ass he knows. Someone who worries Damian so much, he's willing to put a pointless stakeout over daily team torture (sorry, _training_ ). Gar didn't scare easily, or so he likes to tell people - "Yeah, a lion is kind of like my natural form" (He also told Starfire he hates _Zootopia_ , but he digresses) - but the idea of something getting to Damian Wayne is terrifying by pure osmosis.

A bell cuts through his thoughts.

"School's out." Wally says. The front doors explode outwards under a tide of bodies desperate to be free. A school bus (they do look a hell of a lot like prison buses, you've got a admit.) rolls up, sunshine yellow clashing violently with the snow and making Gar nostalgic for Africa.

Over comms, good ol' Napoleon is already rolling out the orders.

"Logan, watch the crowds. West, stand by to shadow the bus."

Wait, was that...? Gar molds into robin, arcing into the air to get closer to the scrum emerging from the gates. There, next to the blonde girl with freckles -

"I got him."

The boy freezes. Cocks his head. Looks like he's listening.

"Where is he, Beast Boy?" Starfire asks. Gar opens his beak to answer, when the boy turns, says something to the blonde girl and melts into the crowd.

"Wait up, he's moving. I'm in pursuit." Gar relays, swooping after him.

"Don't get too close." Robin the Almighty warns. Birds can't physically roll their eyes, but Gar is _this close_. He swerves after the target, into an alleyway.

"Relax, control freak, what's he gonna do -"

Very suddenly Gar isn't flying anymore. He's staring up at the target through a cage made of his fingers. Did this kid just pluck him out of the - ?

"Who are you? Why are you following me?" The boy demands. He looks even younger than in the photo, but now the blue eyes are hard ice and the messy black hair gives him a wild look. Gar would be kind of jealous, if he wasn't kinda terrified.

 _Best to play it safe_.

"Uh - cheep cheep?"

The boy gives him a look like, 'c'mon man, seriously?'

_Or not. So much for method acting._

"Sorry."

The kid glances around, then ducks down to whisper:

"I'm gonna let you go now. Don't. Run." Gar stretches out his wings and molds to standard. The floor's frigid cold jabs at his bare feet and he hops about, swearing. The boy's glasses flash in excitement. "Wait a sec, you're Beast Boy!" His eyes narrow and he jabs an accusing finger. "Are you a Teen Titan?"

He makes it sound like a crime.

"Uh... Yeah. Why?"

It's at this point Damian rears his little demon head.

"Logan! Report in!"

Gar touches his earpiece gingerly, as if it's an unexploded bomb that might go off at any second.

"Hey, boss."

"Are you still in pursuit?"

Gar winces. The I-told-you-so's will last for months.

"Heh, funny story -"

And then very suddenly the earpiece isn't in his ear any more, and the kid is marching up the alley, talking to it pinched between his forefinger and thumb. Did he just swipe- ?

Who _was_ this kid?

"Dami, are you using your superhero team to stalk me?"

For the first time in his life, Gar hears dead silence from Damian's line.

The kid sighs and pinches his nose, pushing his glasses up onto his forehead, so you'd think he was fifty, not eleven.

"Jeez. Well, what's the excuse this time?"

"You're in danger." Damian says stiffly.

The kid rolls his eyes.

"I'm always in danger, there's always some weirdo out to get me. I can look after myself." he glances back Gar's way. "You're actually lucky I didn't fry your friend."

Damian snorts.

"It would've been a blessing, believe me."

Gar raises his hands in surrender.

"Can we stop talking about cooking me, please? Trust me, just because I can turn into a chicken doesn't mean I taste like one."

"Oh, no need to worry, Beast Boy," Damian assures him in an airy voice that manages to do the exact opposite, "Jon doesn't have the guts to follow through on threats. He's too busy hiding behind daddy's cape."

"While you only need to steal the Batmobile every other week to actually beat bad guys." 'Jon' retorts, and Gar actually gapes. Did this eleven year-old just out-insult _Damian?_

"Tt."

That's the first time he's never had a comeback. Gar feels faint.

"Is this about the bet?" Jon asks.

"Of course not!" Damian hisses. Wait - _what_ , did Gar just hear the word bet? This kid has above-it-all Robin gambling?

"What bet?" he almost yells. Jon grins at him, and for such a sweet looking kid it's remarkable how many shades of Damian are in there.

"Who can save the other's life more times before Christmas. Loser has to admit the other one's a better hero, and _I'm_ two ahead."

" _One_." Insists Damian, "I keep telling you, that misunderstanding with the octopus and the stomach pump doesn't count."

"Well he sure as heck wasn't gonna give you a tickle!"

"Careful, Johnny boy," Damian chides, and Gar can almost feel the razor edge of his grin, "that was dangerously close to a swear word. What would mommy think?"

"What is going on here?" Starfire asks, landing in the alley, and Gar remembers the real world exists. He gestures helplessly.

"I have no clue."

"We're protecting Jon." Damian informs her.

"Says the guy without superpowers!" yells Jon.

"Says the guy with three years more experience."

"And three inches less height." Jon mutters darkly.

_Strike two!_

"This isn't funny, Jon. These robots can kill you just by standing next to you."

"So I'll be just as vulnerable as you for a change." he retorts.

"Jon." It's almost like an appeal, which is wrong because Damian never appeals for anything from anybody. He drags you along, kicking and screaming, and he enjoys it.

" _Damian_." Jon says firmly, "If you're that worried, come to dinner and talk about it. I've got a bus to catch and a math assignment to finish, I don't have time for you to be creepy right now."

Damian splutters down the line.

"Don't turn this into another attempt to blackmail me into spending time with you!"

Jon grimaces at the communicator in his hand, like he wants to reach down the line and slap Damian upside the head.

"You just waited outside my school in the freezing cold for like _five hours_ and you're telling me you don't wanna talk?" Miracle silence for the second time in five minutes! Jon grins smugly. "See ya there, then." He tosses the comm back to Gar, who totally does not almost drop it twice. "Thanks. Sorry about him, by the way." He rolls his eyes again, like they're talking about a troublesome pet. "I know it's kind of wierd, but I think this is how he shows affection."

"Affection?" Star gets out. She looks like her brain's been through a blender. Gar thinks -

Oh. Oh, _wow_. Gar stares at Jon's retreating back, and something clicks. Damian said the target was high-value. He never said to who.

_Hello, Pandora._

"Wait -" Damian flounders.

"Mom's making fried chicken!" Jon calls over his shoulder.

"No -"

"See ya!"

And then he's just one kid in a crowd of forty, trying to get on the bus. Gar's already lost him. Wally zips in too late as usual, sending a wave of half-melted slush over Starfire's legs. She leaps back, using some very choice sounding alien words Gar is glad he can't translate. Wally looks around.

"What the hell just happened?"

Gar ignores him, placing the comms device back in his ear with delicacy of a technician attaching the final wire in a nuclear bomb. Forget I-told-you-so's. He's going to make this last _forever_.

"So boss," he says, all chipper, "Am I imagining things, or did he just corner you into a dinner date?"

**Author's Note:**

> First time writing these two. Did I get the team dynamic right?  
> Thanks for reading, more to come maybe!  
> Comments are my lifeblood, so feel free to leave something!


End file.
